From Charles Dickens housing Estella in a residence on Richmond Green in Great Expectations to poet Mick Imlah featuring the Old Deer Park turf in his poem London Scottish in last year’s acclaimed collection The Lost Leader, Richmond has provided the setting for many a literary work.

Journalist and author Emma Burstall has not had to look too far from home to share in the inspiration the locality provides. As a youngster, Burstall drove through Richmond Park every day on her way to St Paul’s School and she now lives in north Kingston with her husband and their three children.

The leafy environs of Richmond, Twickenham, and Kew provide the backdrop for her new novel, Never Close Your Eyes, with Richmond, and the Green in particular, capturing her imagination.

“There is a row of houses near Richmond Theatre and I remember going to a party at one of them when I was 16,” says Burstall. “I met my first boyfriend there so the Green is a significant place for me and is a central setting for the book.

Without wishing to give too much away, she explains: “One of the main characters, Becca, lives in a house on Richmond Green – it is a great location as it has a view across the Green and various things happen there that are important to to the plot.”

In the story, Becca is one of three women who have joined a creative writing group in Richmond and are racing against time to finish novels to enter into a competition. While her two friends deal with their own problems, Becca, a City high-flier, is forced to confront a terrible secret when a face from her past turns up.

Never Close Your Eyes is a follow-up to Burstall’s first novel, Gym and Slimline, and although that book was more light-hearted, she says both share plenty of qualities.

“Never Close Your Eyes has similar themes to Gym and Slimline as I am terminally interested in women’s lives but it is darker, a bit of a thriller,” adds Burstall.

As a journalist, Burstall has written for the Guardian and the Independent on Sunday and this experience has, she says, influenced her fiction.

“I think my characters are a real mix of the people I have known. I have done lots of human-interest stories, interviewing women in detail about their lives, and inevitably there is a bit of friends, family and myself in there as well.”

But have there been any unhelpful journalistic habits that have refused to die-hard?

“As a journalist, you are taught to pare things down, take out the adjectives and adverbs,” she says. “It has felt like such a vluxury to take my time and describe things.”

Never Close Your Eyes is published by Preface on September 3. Visit emma burstall.com for more details.